


Sleeping Beauty

by Deepdarkwaters



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Babysitting, Disney, First Time, Fluff, Gen, Kissing, M/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-16 07:32:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5819677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deepdarkwaters/pseuds/Deepdarkwaters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eggsy's called off on an emergency mission after his mum's already gone to work and the only person available to babysit on such short notice is Harry.</p><p>
  <i>There's a wobbly, suspicious sort of truce between them and it feels as brittle as the pinky wafers Harry finds languishing in the back of a kitchen cupboard.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Listen," he tells Daisy, folding up like a concertina to sit cross-legged on the living room rug beside her, "it's far too late for elevenses and far too early for lunch, but time is a man-made construct and really doesn't mean a thing, so let's eat biscuits."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [howsharry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/howsharry/gifts).



* * *

**5:56**

* * *

"Harry."

Eggsy's voice seems far away, even for a phonecall; it takes far too long for Harry to realise he's holding his phone upside down, and then he feels stupid.

"Mmm," he says when he's got it the right way up, then frowns because that's not what he meant to say. He tries again and manages, "Good morning," with his voice dry and croaky with interrupted sleep.

"Yeah, sorry, bruv, I know it's like the fucking crack of dawn."

"Not at all," Harry tells him after groping blindly for the glass of stale water beside his bed and taking a quick sip to unstick his mouth. He tries opening his eyes but the blinding morning sunlight knifing in between the crack in the curtains is the most offensive thing he's ever seen and he drags his duvet up over his head, resisting the urge to groan. "Is something the matter?"

"Look, I have to ask you this fucking huge favour, alright? Merlin's called me in, emergency, I gotta leave like _right now_."

"On your first weekend off in months? Hardly seems fair."

"Yeah, well, get a ouija board and tell it to Richmond Valentine. World's still a fucking mess, innit, Rox just got sent off to some arsehole end of Siberia and she's literally just come back last night from mopping up the riots in Crete."

It's ridiculous, really, to feel guilty, but Harry feels it anyway, amongst a whole tangled mess of other things: useless, old, impatient to get back to training, frustrated at Merlin pulling rank as the acting Arthur and telling him _no_ , sometimes with a finger pointed in Harry's face that would get immediately broken if he were anybody else in the world. He gets a bit of a pass, considering the stress he's under, but the world still feels like it's burning in far too many scattered pockets amongst the uneasy peace considering how long it's been since V-Day, and it's impossible to tell when it's all going to end, or how many friendships are going to remain intact by the time it's over.

"Swear down I wouldn't ask if there was anyone else, I know you don't need no more hassle when you're still getting better."

"Nonsense, I'm as good as new." Almost. Sort of. Not counting the rainbow of painkillers he keeps in his bathroom cabinet now for his shiny new migraines, or the twisted silvery web of scarring reaching from his eye to his temple where the bulletproof glasses couldn't quite live up to their name at such close range, or this new need to be sleeping for at least ten hours every day when he was used to scraping by on four. "I'm entirely at your disposal. What is it you need?"

There's a knock on the front door then, and again Harry groans, dreading the thought of throwing his covers down and facing the sunlight at this unholy hour of the morning.

"Eggsy, can you hold? I think the milkman might be at the door."

"Yeah, no, that's me."

Oh. Well, that probably makes slightly more sense than the milkman, given that it's not even 6am yet. "Just a moment," Harry tells him, then taps the screen to end the call and rolls clumsily out of bed, managing to get his slippers on the right feet on the second try and stumbling to the stairs.

"Morning," Eggsy says with a big apologetic smile when Harry cracks the front door open and squints at him. He's holding a brown paper bag in one hand, printed with the logo of the coffee shop down the main road and smelling like rich espresso and maple pecan pastry heaven, and his other arm is cradling his sleeping little sister against his hip. "Mum's on shift already. Can you look after Daisy?"

What. "I'm not sure I'm qualified," Harry says desperately, trying to think of both a good excuse to get out of it, and someone, literally _anyone_ , who might be available to do it instead.

"You think I know what the fuck I'm doing? You survived getting shot in the fucking face, you can manage sixteen hours with a child. I bought you breakfast," Eggsy adds hopefully, like that's enough to tip the scales, thrusting the bag under Harry's nose.

Harry makes his mouth go tight to show how unhappy he is with the arrangement but still grumpily takes the bag, opening the door wider and waving Eggsy inside.

* * *

**7:19**

* * *

"Merlin," Harry says urgently, turning on the communications link in his glasses.

"Yes, what it is?" He sounds like he's on the edge and half a second from flinging himself over it. "Can it wait?"

"How do you stop a baby from crying?"

"Depends on why it's crying, I imagine. Did you take something from it? Hit it with your bicycle? What's the context?"

"I have absolutely no idea why she's crying, she just woke up screaming."

"Maybe I'm missing something and there's a really obvious answer," Merlin says in that fake-casual voice he saves especially for his more sarcastic comments, "but why the merry hell is there a baby in your house?"

"Well, there wouldn't be if you hadn't sent her brother to Glasgow."

" _Oh_." He sounds vaguely apologetic when he speaks again, which is a start at least. "How old is she?"

"Three. Four?"

"For fuck's sake, Harry, that's not a baby, that person can probably speak in sentences. _Ask her_ what she wants. I have to go."

"No, don't g—" Too late.

He hovers there awkwardly in the doorway for a while longer, looking helplessly at Daisy's tiny shaking sobbing back, before taking a deep breath for courage and going over to sit on the edge of the spare bed where she's tucked in tightly so she can't fall out

"Good morning, Daisy," he tries. She just howls louder, peeking at him through the blonde hair falling over her eyes before twisting to hide her face in the pillow. "May I get you a drink?"

"I want Eh-heh-hegsy," she wails, stuttering the name into a domino fall of sobs that would almost be funny if it weren't so horrible and piteous.

"So do I," Harry says, because he's too frazzled to think straight. "Perhaps you'd like something to eat?"

"I want a _wee_."

"Merlin," Harry says, desperately fumbling the line open again, " _help_."

* * *

**11:42**

* * *

There's a wobbly, suspicious sort of truce between them and it feels as brittle as the pinky wafers Harry finds languishing in the back of a kitchen cupboard.

"Listen," he tells Daisy, folding up like a concertina to sit cross-legged on the living room rug beside her, "it's far too late for elevenses and far too early for lunch, but time is a man-made construct and really doesn't mean a thing, so let's eat biscuits."

"Eggsy likes these," she informs him. "He eats them like this—" and she grabs one from the decorative little plate and shoves it sideways into her mouth, pressing her cheeks out from within so she looks like Wallace and Gromit. "He can put a Wagon Wheel in his mouth. A whole one. And it don't even break."

The impressive size of Eggsy's mouth and his interest in stuffing things into it is not information Harry needed to hear from a three year old, but now it's there and he's not sure he'll ever get away from it. He looks back at the television to distract himself, trying to figure out what on earth is going on. "What are we watching?"

"That's Flora and Fauna and Merryweather," Daisy says confidently, shoving another wafer in her mouth and spraying pink crumbs when she talks. "They look after Briar Rose now but her name ain't Briar Rose really cos it's Aurora and she's a princess but Maleficent put a spell on her so she's gonna die but Merryweather put a spell on her so she won't and now she lives in the woods so she can't hurt her finger and in a bit there's an owl and he pretends to be a prince then she meets the prince and his name's Philip then Flora and Fauna and Merryweather make her go home to the castle and she ain't very pleased about it then she gets stabbed in her finger and she falls asleep and everyone falls asleep and Maleficent kidnaps Prince Philip and then Flora and Fauna and Merryweather rescue him and he goes and there's thorns and Maleficent's a dragon and he stabs her then Aurora wakes up and they get married I think but you don't see that bit."

"Good lord," Harry says in surprise, staring at the screen where a cartoon birthday cake is collapsing into a heap. "Do we even need to finish watching it? You appear to have it memorised."

Daisy gives him a black look and furtively slides the remote control under the edge of the sofa behind her.

"Fine." Harry raises his hands in surrender and leans back against the sofa cushions, settling down to watch the first Disney animation of his life. "Bloody hell, this is Tchaikovsky."

"Shhh!"

"Sorry."

"And don't say bloody hell."

"Sorry."

* * *

**2:04**

* * *

"Like this," Harry says, lunging forward with the makeshift sword he formed from a rolled-up broadsheet and some sellotape. Daisy shrieks and hops out of the way, giggling, and Harry's face aches from trying not to laugh as well. "No, stand your ground," he insists, gesturing at the television where Basil Rathbone and Tyrone Power are dancing around each other flinging debonair witty quips in between the singing of their blades. "Look at Zorro, see how he—"

Daisy roars like a freight train and races at him, battering him around the kneecaps and backside with her newspaper sword, and Harry completely forgets his own advice and drops his weapon to flee for escape.

"You're supposed to be Zorro, not William Wallace!" he calls back over his shoulder as he's vaulting the coffee table and making for the safety of the stairs. "Style, not force!"

"Force," Daisy tells him defiantly, and despite her tiny stature there's a glint in her eye that's genuinely rather terrifying before she shrieks out a war cry worthy of an orc army and charges for the staircase.

* * *

**4:37**

* * *

Harry found colouring pens in the backpack Eggsy brought with him and Daisy's engrossed in a picture, all her abandoned previous attempts completely covering the coffee table and half the living room floor. Harry's trying to pretend he's not watching in case that's some kind of abhorrent breach of etiquette – he has no idea what's allowed and not when it comes to children and their strange ways – but Daisy seems satisfied that he's reading his book and doesn't notice the way he's watching her draw. There's a blob of a person that must be Eggsy, considering the hideous black and yellow thing he's wearing, a smaller blob in blue with a large daisy for a head, a blob that's smaller still with a few brown dots beside it ("that's JB and JB's poo," she explains when she finally catches Harry looking – is that a normal thing for a child to draw??), a triangle with a head and long blonde hair, and then a figure that's three times taller than all the others and formed of about eighty percent spindly legs and twenty percent huge Elvis Costello glasses.

"How do you spell Harry?" she asks, and he puts his book aside, too delighted that he's been included in this family portrait to do anything except grin like an absolute fool.

"H."

She selects an orange pen and carefully draws a squiggle that looks like a four-pointed star.

"A."

A crooked square in green with a cross in the middle. Her tongue is sticking out the corner of her mouth in concentration.

"R."

In purple, a wavy line like a snake, then she looks up expectantly waiting for the next letter.

"Another R."

In the same purple she draws another wavy snake, this time crossed through with three straight little lines.

"Last letter, Y."

That one's a bright red circle, with a smiley face added like an afterthought. Daisy carefully puts the lids on all her pens then slides the page across the table to him, looking pleased with herself.

"Daisy, it's tremendous," he tells her seriously, because it truly is – vibrant and funny and completely, wonderfully charming. "May I keep this? I'll hang it in my office at work next to my Picasso."

She looks suspicious, like she's not too thrilled at the idea of competition. "What's a Picasso?"

"Come up here." Harry pats the cushion next to his own, and opens Safari on his tablet to show her some pictures. "Look. Aren't they superb? Your colours remind me of them."

She studies them for a while, scrolling down through the Google thumbnails and tapping some for a closer view, finally reaching the assertive verdict: "Mine's better, though."

Harry starts laughing quietly, he can't help it. "Yes, it absolutely is. It's spectacular. I love it dearly, thank you very much."

"Can we watch Sleeping Beauty again?"

"Anything you want."

* * *

**5:19**

* * *

Harry jerks awake about half an hour later, immediately panicking in case Daisy's managed to go and gas herself in the kitchen or wander into traffic while he was out – but she's still there beside him, glancing up every now at then at the cartoon but mostly pouring all of her concentration into her new drawings.

"What," Harry starts to say, sleepy and slurring. He rubs his fingertips into his eyes to clear them, then vaguely realises the other arm is trapped and looks down, confused, to figure out why.

"Tattoos are cool," Daisy informs him, finishing the last careful petal of a daisy on the back of his hand in black Sharpie. His shirt sleeves are still rolled up from washing their sandwich plates at lunch and he squints at his right arm, the doodling lines and vaguely comprehensible pictures covering his skin.

"Is that JB?" he asks, half-convinced he's still dreaming as he taps his forefinger against a fat little circle near his wristbone, and Daisy nods proudly. "In which case, I suppose that's JB's poo."

"Yeah," she says, in the sort of tone of voice that suggests he's stupid for asking.

"Right. Well."

"Are you cross?"

"No. God, no, of course not. In fact—" He gets up then and moves to the cushion on the other side of the middle one she's taken "—I don't believe in starting a thing one doesn't intend to finish. May I have tattoos on this arm as well?"

A look of such surprise flits over her face that it makes Harry's heart clench with how much she looks like Eggsy sometimes, like he's the one she learned all her expressions from.

"Yeah, alright," she tells him after a moment, beaming. "Sit still, yeah, I'm gonna draw Maleficent."

* * *

**8:52**

* * *

"Hey."

It's the faintest whisper in his ear, a tickling little breath. Harry wrinkles his nose up, yawning wide without bothering to open his eyes, and brushes at the intrusion like a dog batting away a fly, but it comes again, no louder than before but _more_ , somehow, like it's closer.

"Hey, Harry. Sleeping Beauty, wake up."

"Sleeping Beauty don't wake up without a kiss," Daisy says. She's a heavy weight on Harry's chest where he's stretched out across the sofa, then he feels little hands on his cheeks and little fingers slipping beneath his glasses, trying to pinch his eyelids open.

"No, Dais, don't do that, wake him up gentle. Give him a kiss on the cheek if you think it'll work, yeah."

"Not _me_ ," she says scornfully, " _you_."

"Oh. No." Eggsy's laughing, quiet, self-conscious. "I ain't sure he'd like that, babe."

"Maybe I would," Harry murmurs, struggling lazily to open his eyes then giving up and just staying exactly where he is, cosy and languid, waiting to see what happens – then holding his breath carefully at the feather-light touch of lips on his cheekbone, trying to resist the urge to lean into it.

"There," Eggsy says, still speaking in a secret little whisper; Harry can hear laughter hovering somewhere behind the words, and something like a promise or a challenge, warm and wonderful and utterly unexpected curling close around his heart and gently squeezing. "Wake up, you idle fuck, I just had to pick the lock to get in cos I seen you two sleeping through the window."

"Don't say fuck," Daisy tells him crossly. When Harry finally opens his eyes the first thing he sees is the cringing look of _oh shit_ on Eggsy's face where he's kneeling beside the sofa, and Harry can't stop himself from laughing, or the ridiculous slow explosion of fondness he feels tickling a shiver of goosebumps right down his spine.

"Daisy, you're gonna get me in trouble. Don't tell Mum. I'll buy you a Skylander."

"Alright."

"Say bye to Harry."

"Bye to Harry."

"Little smartarse," he mutters under his breath. His eyes land on Harry's and stay there, considering, for a long moment before the curl of a smile touches the very corners of his mouth. "Go and get your shoes on, yeah?" he says to Daisy. Then, leaning back in to Harry, he drops his voice to that quiet little whisper and tells him, "I'm taking her home to Mum and coming straight back and if you're asleep there's gonna be trouble. Understood?"

"Perfectly."

Eggsy finds the Sharpie and a small bare patch of skin inside Harry's forearm, and signs his name there between the swooping curves Daisy intended to be a dragon. "Good," he says with a mischievous wink, and lifts Daisy up on his back to carry her home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just... so much fluff. So much kissing. There is nothing to summarise. It's 3K words of rainbows.

There's a special kind of terror in knowing that something you want very much is probably about to happen.

Harry gives Eggsy enough time to get to the main road and turn the corner, not wanting him to glance back and see through the window, then he bolts upstairs, yanking at his clothes as he goes. His hands are shaking – partly that weird fear, mostly the sudden adrenaline seeping through him like leaking batteries – and he gives up on his buttons, pulling his shirt and cardigan inside-out over his head and shoving them into the laundry basket as they are, tangled and still fastened. The shower is far too hot, scalding on his shoulders and the back of his neck, and on the spot on his cheekbone where the memory of Eggsy's single soft kiss lingers as heavy and throbbing as a bruise.

When he shuts off the water and gets out, he swipes the mist from the mirror and stares at his reflection, the ruddy flush in his face and the slight look of panic in his eyes. There's the strangest urge to put his glasses on and call Merlin again to let himself feel grounded by some familiar nugget of exasperated, sarcastic advice, but all things considered that's probably not the best idea.

He does it anyway, because a year stuck at home recovering from the brink of death does a hell of a number on a man's ability to solve his own shit.

"Merlin?"

"Put some clothes on if you're going to call me from in front of a mirror."

"Do you have a minute?"

"Absolutely. I'll just request a ceasefire on all seven of the missions I'm currently supervising so you can ask me how to poach an egg again."

Harry feels better already. His reflection's mouth twitches, pulling up at the sides in something that almost looks more like a smile than a frightened grimace. "Apologies, I know you're busy. I'll leave you to it."

"No, Harry." Merlin sounds exhausted. There's a long, quiet groan in Harry's ear, the noise Merlin always makes without meaning to when he's been sitting still in his spinny chair for too long and finally allows himself an indulgent, spine-crackling stretch. "It's alright, I'm between dire emergencies. What is it? Did you accidentally kill the child?"

"Miraculously, no." Harry tucks a towel around his waist, finds another to quickly scrub his hair dry, and heads back into his bedroom. "I find myself in need of sartorial advice for an extremely peculiar situation."

"I'm listening," Merlin says after a moment. He's always been a hungry little bloody gossip under that mask of indifference. "What situation?"

"On a scale of one to ten, how much detail about my extracurricular activities can you handle?"

"Ahh." He goes quiet again, then says uncertainly, "Five? I could do with the specifics if you want me to help, but I'd like to be able to sleep tonight without nightmares if you don't mind."

"Not at all." Harry swings his wardrobe door open, inspecting the heaps of neatly-folded knitwear in various tasteful shades of charcoal and beige and forest green. "I intend to take Eggsy to bed or at least the nearest flat surface as soon as he knocks on my door, but I can't answer it naked in case the neighbours are twitching their curtains."

"Jesus, that's at least a seven. I was just about to eat a banana, too."

"Are you eating enough? Are you taking your vitamins? Are you getting any sunlight at all?"

"I've got a picture of the sun on my desktop."

"When you get rickets don't say I didn't strongly advise against your lifestyle."

He hears Merlin make a noise that's almost a laugh. "Let's talk about _your_ lifestyle."

"Let's not. Just tell me, blue or red?"

* * *

"Harry?"

Eggsy's voice is muffled, a hallway and a front door away. He rings the bell again twice, rattles the knocker impatiently, then after a pause Harry hears knuckles rapping at the living room window behind his head.

"Fucksake, Harry, you best not be sleeping, I swear to god! What did I fucking say?"

He's not asleep, but he _is_ awfully comfortable reclining like a languid Roman on the sofa and has absolutely no intention of getting up to open the door. Eggsy can bloody well work for it and pick the lock again if he's serious.

 _He's serious_ , the voice in Harry's head tells him five seconds later, sounding pleased with itself, and embarrassingly relieved. The door slams shut and he hears striding footsteps out in the hall and then approaching through the living room, softening on the rug and not hesitating for a second when they reach the sofa: Eggsy clambers right on top of him, awkward at first and then wriggling beautifully until they fit together like pieces in a jigsaw made of limbs.

"You," he says sternly, "are a _lazy bastard_." He slides Harry's glasses off his face and drops them somewhere, then Harry feels the gentle touch of a stroking thumb on his scarred cheekbone, a warm palm cupping his jaw, trailing fingertips of Eggsy's other hand drawing an invisible, shivering line down the side of his neck, across his collar, to the buttons of his navy cardigan. They rest for a moment there before fiddling with the top one, slipping it deftly through its buttonhole and moving on to the next. "I'm gonna kiss you. You probably wanna be awake for it, yeah, cos it's gonna be a fucking blinder."

'Blinder' is a bit of a reach: the first kiss is quick, sweet, something like a question in the brief press of lips and the shaky way Eggsy breathes out afterwards, like he's not nearly as confident as he's pretending to be. When Harry open his eyes Eggsy must see something he likes there; the flash of uncertainty morphs to delight, a laughing sort of glimmer in his gaze before he tilts his face to Harry's again and then he's too close to see as anything but a blur of skin and colours.

This time it's better, bordering on ferocious; Harry opens his mouth to Eggsy's attack, arms winding tight around his waist to hold him close, and above him Eggsy wriggles insistently into the space between Harry's parted legs. "Promise I don't pay all her babysitters like this," he murmurs against Harry's mouth, fingers trailing down the side of Harry's face to rest, fidgeting, on his shirt collar. "Only, you know, the fit ones."

"Fit for nothing," Harry says wryly as he's lifting the hem of Eggsy's t-shirt, tracing the grooves and ridges of muscle in his abdomen with worshipful fingers, then, because the first touch makes Eggsy's breath do something wobbly and beautiful, following the dark line of hair from his navel to the top of his jeans. "Look at you, bloody hell. You're like an underwear model."

"Look at _you_ ," Eggsy insists, batting Harry's hand away and settling down on his chest again, landing kisses with startling tenderness on his face: his chin, the corner of his lips, the bridge of his nose, the scar on his cheekbone again. "You got no fucking clue, do you?"

 _What_ , Harry tries to say, but instead he finds himself sighing into Eggsy's mouth again, shushed by his insistent tongue. They part just long enough for him to lift Eggsy's t-shirt off over his head, then his hands are back on Eggsy's body: fingers splayed wide across the bumps of his ribs, sliding around his back, fingertips dipping into the long, twisting indentation of his spine as he arches and writhes under Harry's touch. "Ticklish?"

"No," Eggsy says, resettling his legs so he's straddling one of Harry's thighs and pressing down against him, the line of his cock hot and hardening as fast as Harry's own. "Turned on."

"How fortuitous."

"Something like that, yeah." There's laughter behind his voice, shining in his eyes when he props himself up a little way with his hands on the cushions either side of Harry's head. "I nearly kissed you that first time I was here, after the train tracks. I thought like, if he kisses back happy days, if he don't I can go well fuck me them martinis are lethal and try and laugh it off."

Harry slides his fingers through Eggsy's damp hair – and that's a glorious sort of reminder of exactly what's going on here, the idea that Eggsy had a frantic panic shower as well and raced back over with a single purpose – and draws him down, noses bumping gently as he angles his way into another kiss, slow and sweet, tracing the ridges of Eggsy's teeth with his tongue and feeling Eggsy suck on his lower lip in the moment before they part. He remembers that night well; Eggsy, soft and golden in the lamplight of his living room, watching Harry's hands on the gin and vermouth bottles and copying his motions with the stirrer, then the long, slow slide of Eggsy's throat above the open collar of his polo shirt when he took the entire drink in one like a tequila shot because he said he couldn't bear the old lady perfume taste of the Tanqueray. _Maybe I'll show you how to make a snakebite and black now_ , he'd said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and arching one perfect eyebrow, smirking. If Harry hadn't already been smitten past the point of no return, that look alone would have done it.

"Why didn't you?"

"Didn't wanna fuck it up," he says simply, curling his fingers round the back of Harry's neck, sliding through the short hair there with a gentleness that makes him shiver with sudden goosebumps. "Then, you know, everything kinda went to shit. Been a bit busy ever since." His fingers travel back round to Harry's front, following the line of his open collar to the first fastened button and opening it. "Got tomorrow off, though," he adds, faking nonchalance as he works buttons two and three through their holes. "And you're pretty much back to full strength, ain't you?"

"Getting there," Harry confirms, hypnotised by the slow smile blooming on Eggsy's mouth, how it twists crooked at the last moment and becomes something teasing and wicked and wonderful.

"Good," Eggsy says, "cos you're gonna fucking need it."

The journey to the bedroom is like something farcical from a film, interrupted every few steps with kisses or a piece of clothing being removed and thrown aside. Harry's cardigan, chosen so carefully, gets dumped unceremoniously on the stairs, and his shirt ends up draped over the balustrade, turned inside-out because Eggsy was too impatient to properly unfasten the cufflinks. When they finally make it to the bed, Eggsy sits there to kick off his trainers while Harry turns on the lamp – then Eggsy starts laughing, and Harry turns round to look at him in surprise.

"What?"

"Nothing, I just forgot your wicked new sleeves."

Oh. "Yes," Harry says, not even bothering to aim for dignity under the circumstances. He sits beside Eggsy, holding both arms out and turning them over to show off all of Daisy's work, faded slightly from the shower. "I did give them a scrub but it appears some idiot mixed a permanent Sharpie in with his sister's Crayolas."

"Reckon we should take you down Inkubus in the morning and get them to go over this one," Eggsy says, lifting Harry's arm to his mouth and brushing a gentle little kiss against the place where he'd signed his nickname in looping, extravagant cursive. "Reminder who you belong to now."

"Awfully presumptuous of you," Harry tells him, exaggerated reproach in his voice to hide just how much his stupid old heart is turning somersaults. "Whatever makes you think I want more than a one night—"

He interrupts himself with a breathless laugh, he can't help it, winded slightly and woozy with desire when Eggsy shoves him down on the bed and straddles his hips, fingers clasped tight around Harry's wrists to hold them there against the mattress above his head. "You wanna finish that sentence, bruv?"

"No." He wants to laugh again, but not because anything is funny: it's just an overpowering, giddy explosion of happiness. "I shall keep my mouth firmly closed until instructed otherwise."

" _Fuck_ —"

Eggsy's on him immediately, the warm bare press of his chest against Harry's as he goes in for another kiss. There's a gratifying feeling of desperation in the way he moves, frantic and hungry, and Harry surges up to meet his mouth, licking into him while his fingers thread and wind through Eggsy's hair as if to silently beg _stay right here, stay forever_. He only releases him when Eggsy starts to kiss a path downwards, a trail of hot sucking kisses down his neck, down the centre of his chest, lingering on the softness of his belly. There was a time not so very long ago when he was as toned as Eggsy, from the necessity of the job and vanity in equal parts, but a year of bed rest and lounging about the house waiting for his head to heal itself has ruined all of that – although perhaps ruined isn't the right word any more, not with the way Eggsy's touching him, fingertips leaving imaginary trails in his skin like comet tails, lips ghosting over the places where there used to be tight, trained muscle and leaving reverent kisses there.

When Eggsy unfastens his trousers and kisses lower, Harry can't help the soft little yearning noise he makes, or the way his trembling fingers creep back to brush through Eggsy's mussed hair. "Alright?" Eggsy asks, gazing up the length of Harry's body with a brilliant, beautiful smile as he's hooking his fingers into the waistbands and easing down his pants and trousers.

"Alright. Tremendous view from up here, I have to say."

Eggsy laughs softly at that, breath blowing warm over Harry's cock. "It's only gonna get better," he promises, and it's not a lie. Not that Harry actually sees much of it: the combination of not having been touched by anything but his own hand for an awfully long time and Eggsy's clever, marvellous tongue is enough to make him writhe on the bed, squeezing his eyes shut, arching, trembling under the press of Eggsy's hand holding him down while the other circles his cock, slick with spit and stroking slow and steady below the sucking wet heat of his mouth. "You gonna come?" Eggsy asks softly after a while, maybe reading it in the way Harry's fingers are starting to clench and release fitfully in his hair. When Harry dares another glance down, there's something dark and starving in Eggsy's eyes, a crooked sort of grin on his reddened mouth, urging him on. "Do it, yeah? I wanted this forfuckinever"—and he goes back down, the heat of his mouth and his slick velvet tongue drawing Harry's cock right to the back of his throat so Harry can feel the shifting wet pressure of it when Eggsy swallows around him. He comes pushing desperately into Eggsy's mouth, muffling wordless sounds against the name on his inked forearm while his other hand, sweating and trembling, gets caught in the wild tangle he's made of Eggsy's blond hair.

"Fuck," Eggsy's saying, swiping his tongue up the length of Harry's cock and all around the head, swallowing down everything he can while Harry stares at him, shaking, breath heaving hard in his burning lungs.

"Fuck," he agrees, mouth feeling loose and useless around the word until he tugs gently on Eggsy's hair, drawing him up for a messy, filthy kiss. It grounds him slightly, breath starting to even out, the urgent abandon of their movements slowing over the stretch of several minutes so that by the time they part Harry feels like he's back in himself, while Eggsy above him is gasping and shuddering under the slow slide of Harry's hands down his naked back. He makes a sound when Harry sucks gently at his lip, a beautiful pleading sort of whine, nudging his cock insistently against Harry's thigh.

"Swear down," he murmurs, "gonna come in my pants like a fucking teenager."

Harry fumbles between them for the zip on his jeans. "Just from this?"

"Just from you," Eggsy tells him, unsteady and breathless. He doesn't in his pants: when he comes it's from Harry's fingers curled loose around him, learning the way he likes to be stroked, drawing out his pleasure and a rising, shuddering, stunned little gasp.

"Right," Eggsy says after a minute, sprawled diagonally across Harry's bed – and Harry – with his hair in disarray and his cock still hanging out of the stained jeans he never actually got as far as pushing down. "Best find my t-shirt and wander off home, then."

"Bollocks," Harry tells him firmly. "You stay there, and you never, ever move."

Eggsy laughs at that, bright and beautiful, not bothering to open his eyes but searching for Harry's hand by touch alone so he can wind their fingers together and press a line of kisses over the bumps of Harry's knuckles. "Yeah, sounds good for you but what's in it for me?"

"Whatever you'd like. Eternal devotion, if that sort of thing appeals."

Eggsy finally opens his eyes at that, smiling dizzily in a way that notches deep dimples into his cheeks. "I was angling for another one of your genius fry-ups in the morning, but I suppose that'll do."

He shifts up the bed to the pillow end and starts to lay kisses all over Harry's face, stroking his hair, the line of his jaw, everywhere, then eventually he settles there with his head tucked close under Harry's chin, moving only twice more: to switch off the lamp, and to whisper _me too_ on the lowest of breaths into Harry's ear.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We could go to a restaurant next time," Harry suggests, "and eat with knives and forks," but Daisy looks supremely unimpressed.
> 
> "We _got_ knives and forks built in," she tells him. Her tone tells him he's an idiot; she even opens and closes her hands, crab-style, to dumb it down for him even more. He's negotiated his way out of certain death dozens of times in his career, but doesn't really know how to argue with that one.

* * *

**One Year Later**

* * *

Somewhere along the line, Daisy's decided that Harry is a chair.

She fell asleep on his lap once while they were watching Howl's Moving Castle and woke up only to tell him, mangled by an apocalyptic yawn, that he had a comfy squashy belly. He booked a series of sessions with one of Kingsman's personal trainers immediately and battled back to the required fitness level with a speed that surprised everyone - except Merlin, of course, who came to Harry's rescue with a bottle of water and a towel when he was near comatose on the gym floor after his second session and archly said _I should've put money on it being vanity that dragged you back_.

It's summer now, and just on the wrong side of excruciatingly hot. The tartan picnic blanket beneath Harry's back is sticky with spots of spilled juice and discarded ice pole sleeves, and Daisy, smeared shiny with sunblock, is sitting cross-legged on Harry's newly-firm stomach using his thighs as a backrest. He's been more comfortable than this as a hostage being tortured for information, but she doesn't need to know that.

"Why's grass green?" she's asking, gesturing around them at the crowded lawns of Green Park. It's about the eleventh such question, after _how come Australians don't fall off the world_ and _why's tigers called tigers_ and so on - somehow she's not bored yet, despite Harry's increasingly bewildered replies as he tries to dredge up the lingering remnants of school science lessons in the seventies and bits of television quiz shows.

"Something to do with a thing called chlorophyll, I believe," he says vaguely, wishing he didn't accidentally kill every plant he tried to raise in the black hole that is his pathetic back yard. "It absorbs certain wavelengths, the short blue ones and the longer red ones, and we're left with the green."

"Okay, but how much does a cloud weigh?"

"What kind of cloud? Cirrus, cumulus? Nimbostratus?"

"Fluff cloud," she says, and stares at him with an expectant look on her face.

"Fourteen stone six pounds," Harry says desperately, the first number that comes into his head. "Have some more crisps, they'll only go in the bin if we don't finish them."

He doesn't quite dare eat any more himself while he's lying down, after an alarming episode earlier involving the accidental inhalation of a vinegary crumb and - more than likely - a couple of broken vertebrae from the hefty thump Daisy had given him with her deceptively tiny fist while he was on all fours hacking up like Mr Pickle after he ate a decorative pine cone one Christmas. He holds the bag up for her instead, and she munches through the last scraps the exact revolting way Eggsy does, licking off all the salt and vinegar that coats them first then chewing the wet pulpy potato slices.

"We could go to a restaurant next time," Harry suggests, "and eat with knives and forks," but Daisy looks supremely unimpressed.

"We _got_ knives and forks built in," she tells him. Her tone tells him he's an idiot; she even opens and closes her hands, crab-style, to dumb it down for him even more. He's negotiated his way out of certain death dozens of times in his career, but doesn't really know how to argue with that one.

"Right," he says instead, helpless in defeat to the five-year-old tyrant he accidentally adores like she's his own family. And she is, almost. It's a staggeringly lovely thought, one that creeps up on him at several points during every day and breathes on his neck to make all the little hairs stand up.

"We're going to make over the spare bedroom for you," Harry tells her. "For when you visit." He takes the empty crisp packet when she's finished and begins folding it carefully into a neat little pentagon. Fidgety hands when he's nervous is a problem he trained himself out of decades ago, but the urge is still always lurking just beneath the surface and there's something rather nice about being comfortable enough with someone to let it all seep out. "We shall need to wrangle a day when neither Eggsy nor I have to work so we can take you to choose a bed and wallpaper and things."

The pleased little grin she does when she's surprised is so like her brother's. It's a quirk that Harry thought Eggsy had inherited from Lee, but it's so plain in Daisy's face as well that he realises it's probably Michelle's expression which Lee caught from her like a cold and brought with him to the Lancelot trials - an expression he's not yet seen her wear, although she's finally managed to stop looking pained any time Eggsy invites him round for family Sunday dinner so maybe they're making some kind of glacially slow progress at last.

"Can I get a four post bed?"

"If you'd like."

"Can I get a race car shape bed?"

"One or the other, I think. I'm not sure there's room for both."

"Can I get a telly? _This_ big." She demonstrates with her arms flung out; it's only half the width of the monstrous flatscreen Eggsy bought with his first Kingsman wages, but Harry understands the sentiment.

"Let's decide when Eggsy's here, shall we? It's his house as well now."

"Yeah, but"--Daisy leans in closer, conspiratorial as though Eggsy might be hiding in the bushes with an ear trumpet, and Harry grits his teeth trying not to let his discomfort show when she plants her whole weight on a supporting hand right over his solar plexus--"I heard Eggsy telling Mum they thought I was asleep I heard him say you're a pushover, he said I only gotta smile at you and you'll give me anything I want."

He'd object to that, if he weren't being sat on and stoically bearing the pain simply because she looks comfortable. If he hadn't spent half an hour before their picnic pretending not to be able to turn cartwheels just to see the satisfied grin on her face when she finally managed to teach him.

"Television negotiable," he says firmly, though he's already picturing which wall to mount the damn thing on and whether to get one with a built-in DVD player or just hook it up with Netflix. "It's about time we went and found him for your fitting. Have you finished your lunch?"

"We got any crisps left?"

"You'll turn into a crisp," Harry warns her, then curses himself for turning into his mother. He begins patting the blanket to either side of him, trying blindy to gather up the tinfoil and peach stones without dislodging Daisy from her throne, but she hops up (Harry suppresses a whimper of pain and wonders whether there'll be shoe-shaped bruise on his ribs later) and scrambles around to help him stuff all the picnic detritus into a plastic bag for the bin.

"Harry?" she asks, drawing the word out long and wheedling as though there are about nineteen Y's in it.

Cautiously, "Yes?"

She doesn't answer for a moment, tongue stuck out the corner of her mouth as she tries to get the strap of the rolled blanket through the brass buckle; when she does speak, it's with a careless airy sort of tone as though it's just an unimportant thought she's dashed off. "I like hanging out with you."

"Oh," Harry says, because he's an intelligent articulate fifty-five-year-old man with a Charterhouse education and a long career of making his handlers stifle giggles or secretly-impressed groans at his wordplay. He crouches to let her climb him like a monkey, and she settles on his back and clings on with all her spindly limbs the way she always does. "Well. Thank you very much."

"You're _supposed_ to say you like hanging out with me too," she says reprovingly, then seems to relent and adds, "It's alright though, I already know you do."

"Of course I do," Harry tells her as he's heading for the park exit by the Ritz.

"Of course you do," Daisy repeats, satisfied. "Why wouldn't you?"

* * *

It's a short walk to Savile Row, although not a particularly pleasant one in the heat, especially not with Daisy's arms threatening to garrotte him every time she forgets the bit she's hanging from is the bit Harry needs to breathe. He's flagging slightly by the time they turn the corner into the street, although he perks up considerably when he sees a couple of distant figures standing on the steps outside the shop.

" _Hey Eggsy_!" Daisy yells right in Harry's ear, which he minds a lot more than the disapproving glare from the snooty specimen eyeing them from the window of William Hunt; the previous Lancelot always insisted the name was rhyming slang for the people who worked there. The current Lancelot is standing a step higher than Eggsy outside the front door of Kingsman so they appear to be the same height, dressed in civvies since it's her day off but somehow managing to look neater in her jeans and vest and sandals than Eggsy does in the limp remnants of his suit. His tie is loose and top button undone, sleeves rolled up messily to his elbows, jacket abandoned somewhere. Disgraceful, really, but then he smiles and Harry goes a bit unnecessary: fluttering butterflies in the stomach, thundering blood in all the pulse points, appalling dopey grin on the old face complete with dimples where Eggsy likes to press his fingertips sometimes when they're doing the sort of kissing that lasts for hours and ought to have been grown out of by seventeen.

"You made Harry cart you all the way from the park?" Eggsy says when they're close enough, but he's laughing: bright and alive with it, and blushing or sunburnt, it's not clear which. He makes a spinning gesture with his finger until Harry turns around, and between them Eggsy and Roxy peel Daisy away from his unfortunately sweaty cardigan. "Lazy bloody lump," Eggsy accuses, holding her upside-down in the air by one ankle as though she weighs nothing until she's shrieking with giggles and trying to kick him with her free foot.

"Put me _down_!"

"Put her down," Roxy echoes, trying to grab Daisy's flailing arms and help turn her the right way up. "We've got suits to fit."

Saying the words makes it all feel suddenly, starkly _real_ , and Eggsy seems to sense it too. For the briefest moment he looks startled, than a slow smile spreads back onto his face and he reaches out for Harry's hand to tap morse code against his damp palm: _love u_.

To Daisy, out loud, he says, "You sure you and Rox don't want nice dresses, babe?" and Daisy gives him the most offended look Harry's ever seen on a human being's face.

"Yeah right, only if _you_ wear a dress."

"Suits it is, then," Eggsy says, laughing, and goes to hold the shop door open for his bridesmaids.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Спящая красавица](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10930884) by [chatain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chatain/pseuds/chatain)




End file.
